Part II – The Modern Wars

Chapter Seven – The Fourth Holy Grail War (1996)

The participants of the Fourth Heaven's Feel were largely unaware of the corrupt nature of the Holy Grail, and it is with that in mind that these events must be considered. In addition to the three founding families of the Heaven's Feel system, the participants included Kayneth Archibald (Lord El-Melloi I etc.), Waver Velvet (Lord El-Melloi II etc.), Fr. Kirei Kotomine and one master whose identity is still unknown. The servants whose identities we can confirm are as follows: Alexander the Great (Rider), Diarmuid Ua Duibhne (Lancer), Gilgamesh (Archer), Hassan i Sabbah (Assassin). and King Arthur (Saber). Caster is hypothesized to be Gilles de Rais, whereas Berserker's identity is a mystery.

Command seals began to appear three years prior to the Grail War's start, with Tokiomi Tohsaka and Fr. Kirei Kotomine receiving them first, according to Tohsaka family records. These same records indicate that the unknown master of Caster received their seals last, as Caster was the final class to be summoned to the war.

Fighting began on 10 December with the first battle taking place between Archer and Assassin. Archer's noble phantasm, the Gate of Babylon, seemingly obliterated Assassin and his master from the war. This first fight was an act of deliberate misdirection, intended to conceal the alliance between the Tohsaka and the Church that had been previously established after the Third Heaven's Feel, as well make it look as if Assassin was out of the war. In turn, creating that assumption would allow Assassin to act as a form of reconnaissance, gathering information on the other servants for the Tohsaka family.

The second battle occurred at the Fuyuki Harbour and was between Lancer, Saber, Rider, Archer and Berserker. The initial combatants – Lancer and Saber – were friendly enough to share their names, only for the fight to be interrupted: first by Rider, second by Archer, third by Berserker. Not much came of this fight – no servants were downed, nor masters killed – besides allowing the combatants to engage each other face to face for the first time and witness a number of Noble Phantasms in use. To wit, Archer's Gate of Babylon (firing weapons from the king's treasury) was employed, as was Berserker's mastery of all weapons (the ability to pick anything up and make it into a Noble Phantasm), Rider's ox drawn chariot and Lancer's associated spears. The only true damage dealt was from Lancer to Saber, who severed Saber's tendon and made two-handed sword wielding impossible.

Much of what is known about the Fourth Heaven's Feel that was not personally experienced comes from the records of Tokiomi Tohsaka, who served as Archer's master and kept careful documentation of the war's events. It is thanks to his attention to detail that an understanding of the other intrigues of the war are possible, with a special emphasis on the servants. Assassin has been dealt with in other portions of this text, so there will be no repetition here. Archer – Gilgamesh, of the Epic of Gilgamesh - was arrogant according to the Tohsaka records and nearly uncontrollable . Tokiomi hypothesizes in his notes that this was due to Gilgamesh's understanding that the world was under his ownership and to be commanded by lesser men was a grave insult, but other theories suggest it was more so Gilgamesh lacking control over the battle itself – up to and including enemies, objective, position etc. In battle, he frequently refused to stand on the same ground as the other servants and masters. Berserker's identity remains unknown, but due to his knightly armor, a medieval candidate is logical. In the case of Caster, things become harder as he was pointedly inept as a magician of any sort and referred frequently to his spellbook. Relying primarily on the text, he favoured the summons of Lovecraftian horrors. His identity as Gilles de Rais will be broken down later, as the atrocities that Caster committed support this theory. Lancer freely named himself as Diarmuid Ua Duibhne from the Fenian cycle of Irish mythology. While Tokiomi's records suggest that there were behind-the-scenes complications with his master, they offer no further elaboration – only a comment that Lancer acted with the expected morals of a man making up for a past error. As for Rider – Alexander the Great -

Waver sighs and puts his draft of the Fourth Heaven's Feel down again. There are no deadlines here save for the arbitrary ones Rin invents to ensure that there will be progress on the book before she flies back to Japan when term at Clock Tower ends, but he is still annoyed at himself and at the words that refuse to come. It has been thirty years since the Fourth Heaven's Feel ended; he should be able to speak about Rider now.

He does not crumble the paper up and throw it across the backyard, but he does glare at it until Rin walks outside and laughs at his face of frustration.

"Writer's block?" she asks, setting down one of two tall glasses of water.

"Of a sort," Waver replies. "If there's a writer's block for having too much to say and being forced to condense it."

Rin grabs the draft off the table and skims it, offering Waver a sympathetic arm pat when she finishes. "Have you tried working around it?"

"I have," Waver says, fingers idly drawing designs on the sweat of his glass, purposely avoiding whatever look would accompany such a bizarrely tender gesture from Rin. It's for both of their sakes. "But-" He pauses, caught in the inevitability of the rest of that sentence, before he lets it escape a half-tone lower. "Everything comes back to this one point, and until I can put Rider into words, I remain stuck."

"You say that like it's a unique problem," Rin scoffs, dipping her index finger in her own water glass and flicking the droplets at him as she pulls it out.

"At what point did I imply it was?" It's not the response he would have given when he was younger, but the heat of his youth echoes in the dryness in his manner now, dark eyes lifting to match Rin's with a flat sort of defiance.

Rin laughs chiddingly at his defense, slumping in her chair in an attempt to get comfortable. "You forget I've experienced this sort of a death before as well. My experience and writing comes back to Archer as much as yours comes back to Rider."

"It's hard for me to forget something I never knew much about in the first place," Waver points out, lifting his glass to take a long sip. He'd ask what time it is, how long he has been outside trying to twist together uncooperative words, but he isn't sure he actually wants to know.

"And you've never spoken of Alexander to me," Rin returns, certain that she is privileged enough to go beyond class names. "How many days have you been stuck on the description?"

"Working around it? Three, four," he replies, purposely careless as he leans back in his chair. It's more than long enough for him to resent the impossibility of the words, and to leave him prickly at all of Rin's finger-wagging. Let her write about her Archer, he muses sourly, if it's so easy. Let her chatter on about him as if he were a subject fit to toss about over coffee and terrible green tea.

"Clearly the written word has no place here," she murmurs, nimble fingers leafing through the pages again, counting. "So tell me about him."

That isn't too difficult, Waver supposes. Still, he takes a deep breath before he begins, mind settling into familiar patterns of analysis and lecture. "Alexander the Great - also known as Alexander the Third of Macedon - summoned into the Rider class of the Fourth Heaven's Feel in Fuyuki, Japan, on 9 December. Originally born in the year 356 BC in Pella, Macedon, to Philip II and Olympias. The origin of his legend was conquest, deriving from his-"

"-No," Rin interrupts, her tone biting. "Not the information I could get out of a textbook. Tell me about Alexander the person."

"The textbook might not help you entirely." Waver corrects without even meaning to, but does not stop himself, beyond an unseemly muttering into his glass. "Do you know I went down to Fuyuki with a grainy xerox of the Lysippios statue? I studied the mosaic a few dozen times, I was sure I knew what I'd get. Short, shaved, maybe heterochromia." He gestures with the glass, abruptly, sending beads of condensation onto the sheets of manuscript. "And I summon this servant, red-haired, beard, at least two hundred ten centimeters tall-" The frustration twists into a chuff, sharp, and not quite amused. "I thought there must have been something wrong with Clock Tower's history books. Tampering. But the ones in Japan all gave the same description."

Rin makes a pleased hmph, pausing to mop up the water droplets that have made their way onto the manuscript. "If it makes you feel any better, I botched Archer's summons. He couldn't remember his own name." The words stumble out of her mouth with an ease that Rin could have never expected in admitting she failed at something.

Waver doesn't laugh, not really, but a noise that might have been a laugh in gentler times comes up through his teeth, the thin line of them visible through an incredulous almost-grin. "That isn't something you would joke about."

"No," and Rin says it if only to create something like an even playing field between them. "It isn't."

"Mm." It's the sort of thing that Waver, in his old age, does not confirm or linger on with more than an if-you-say-so sort of hum. Though he wouldn't have anticipated such a thing from Rin, he is not surprised enough to be shocked. The past few decades have proved all of them fallible enough. "How was that, connecting to a nameless Servant?"

"The catalyst and summons or what followed after?"

"I believe the 'after' is the point of this discussion."

"Connecting could have been taken either way," Rin shrugs, swirling her glass and watching the ice cubes chase each other around, rattling merrily over her somber voice. "And it's relevant - I used one of my own mana-charged gems for the summons, with the understanding that without a proper catalyst, the Grail chooses the Heroic Spirit best suited to you." She stops moving the glass, and the ice chatters for a few more seconds, filling in the pause. "As it turns out, it had a connection to a future hero, and so instead of automatic capability, I got-well, you remember Shirou, yes?"

"I could hardly forget the young man you dragged around as an assistant for ten years." Waver gives a fond grin, refraining from poking fun at his own inability to cook and how useful Rin's assistant had been to him as well.

"It was him I summoned."

Waver doesn't quite choke, but is a near thing, and the incredulous laugh he gives is met with a flat, unimpressed stare from Rin. "Shirou," Waver manages. "Shirou who said to me that he could never be a proper mage because he couldn't play magi games like we do."

"The same," Rin says flatly.

"-How?"

"I believe the phrase you would use is timey-wimey?"

"That would be it. How did you know it was him, if he forgot his own name?"

"Honestly?" Rin muses, leaning back in her chair. "I think he only forgot initially and spent the rest of the time faking it. On one hand, I can understand it, because that would require him to act as an oracle, but on the other it would have been nice to know what was coming up next in the war."

Waver hums in agreement, barely registering why the great marching horde that is the Ionioi Hetairoi flashes through his mind. "Then if his future circumstances were different, did he ever explain how he came to be a heroic spirit?"

"Never," Rin says, giving a half laugh. "He deflected everything with snark and half-questions of my own actions."

Waver would laugh if the image wasn't so damned hard to picture. "Shirou snarking on anything," Waver murmurs, face screwed up in concentration. "-Nope, can't see it, not even with food."

That prompts a full, loud snort from Rin, completely undignified, as well as a kick under the table. It connects with Waver's foot, prompting him to wince. "If it helps," Rin continues, ignoring Waver's whine of pain, "don't think of them as the same person. I definitely didn't and still don't. A whole lifetime made them different from each other. But any servant is like that - they are their legend but by acting as a servant, they are new people with new memories their legend will never have." She pauses, then grins. "Might explain Alexander's appearance."

"It might," Waver agrees. "But back to the matter at hand. I know you couldn't have taken that attitude and second-guessing well at age eighteen."

Rin nods, her hands curling around her glass. "Not at all, and especially not from a servant who was well, a tool. I spent my first command seal to get him to listen to me."

"I'm certain that went over well," Waver deadpans, knowing there is more.

"Oh, absolutely," Rin confirms with an eyeroll, watching Waver bask in his redirection of the conversation. For now, she'll permit him the illusion he has derailed the subject entirely. "Great way to start off a relationship, let me assure you."

"You were no better than me," Waver admits with a small laugh. "And I'll bet Archer didn't flick you on the forehead with such force that you fell magnificently backwards onto your ass and the world spun around you."

Rin doesn't even try not to laugh. "Are you serious?"

"Dead."

"Okay, then I definitely won servant roulette compared to you," she grins, once her laughter has faded. "Even if I did use command seals irresponsibly. Then again, everyone does, at least once."

"Maybe, maybe not," Waver sing-songs with a half smile, widening the smile when Rin's expression sours at the cryptic tone embedded within.

"Seriously," she says. "I'm sure you spent at least one of your command seals stupidly as well."

"All three of them at once. And broadly." The words come easily, and leave with levity that they shouldn't have. At least that ought to be the case, Waver thinks after the words leave his mouth. But they are words that have been silent for a long time, and the edges are gone, even when he unearths another sentence that should cut with barely a touch. "It probably saved my life."

The laughter fades and Rin prompts him on with no more than a gentle, "Oh?"

"With more than half the field still standing, I commanded him to take the final victory." An index finger straightens in the space between them. "I ordered him seize the Grail"-its brother unfolds to join it-"and then, the world," he finishes. He leaves the count between them a moment, blue-black inkstains sunk into three short-nailed fingertips, joints hard and prominent with decade after decade of work. "All at once."

"To use your words, that isn't precisely a conventional strategy," Rin says, leaning forward and resting her chin on one of her hands.

"I would have liked to see you to do better."

"I could have, if that was the war I was fighting in." Rin sighs. "But it wasn't. I used my second command seal foolishly as well."

"Did you?"

"In retrospect it was foolish at least, although at the time, I was being second-guessed and we needed to act. I regretted it soon after, especially because I knew I needed the third seal to win the war and Archer's personality wasn't going to change."

Waver inclines his head slightly, fingers drumming on the table. "That was the real difference between our circumstances, then. My - our - genuine need was to not have even one command seal left."

"That was before you knew that all seven servants have to be sacrificed to complete the Greater Grail, wasn't it?"

"I'd never have dreamed that was the trick to it." In retrospect, it's unforgivably naive that he'd thought winning the Grail was as simple as taking a medal in a competition. The whole thing had seemed much simpler from the inside.

Rin's expression morphs into something grimmer, pretense of a smile gone. "Whereas I knew from my father's writings, and that was why the third seal had to remain." She runs her fingers over the manuscript again, and Waver is certain that her fingers pointedly brush over Tokiomi's name. "It was easier to think about in theory though. Once the war had begun, I almost forgot that it would be a necessary action. Most of the time I was too busy making sure that Shirou didn't do something stupid or I was dealing with Archer's Archerness."

"Speaking of," Waver says, knowing an opening when he sees one. "What did Archer want out of the whole thing?"

"What did Alexander want?"

"A human body so he could conquer the world in the flesh."

Rin snorts. "Nothing so grand for Archer. He was dissatisfied with his status."

Waver knows Rin will read about the banquet at the Einzbern's castle eventually, so he says nothing about how Shirou's servant in the fifth war was an oddly perfect match in light of this information. "And only the Grail could fix it."

"I doubt he would have answered the summons otherwise." Rin pauses, straightening up and arching her back. It cracks loudly, and Waver cringes.

"Getting old there?"

"I'm not the one who's nearly fifty," she says. "What do you think you would have done if you had been the last two standing?"

"I can't say," Waver replies, taking a moment to imagine what he would have done in a profoundly altered situation, embarrassed at just how little he knows what he was thinking at certain moments in his youth. He takes a moment to trace what makes the question so difficult, then lets out a tired sigh at the realization. "Any day - any hour during that war, my response would be different."

"Then let me ask this," Rin says, shifting ever so slightly in her chair. "What would Alexander have done?"

Waver frowns at her, softly, as if she'd said something a little mad. "If he'd thought I meant to kill him?"

"If you had both understood what was required to win."

"That every servant is handed a false promise?" he muses, understanding her finally. He runs the scenario over and over again in his mind, trying to twist around the particulars of the tangle that question presents, until he realizes the only way is to go clean through to the other side. "Cut the knot and walk away. I don't believe he would have accepted a war where the final opponent was me. I know I wouldn't have."

"You made for a poor master then, declaring such loyalty to a servant," Rin says, making it clear the statement is not an insult. "Or was fidelity a mere side effect of his presence?"

"I was young and he was a hero," Waver answers simply, and for all he has ever bristled or bitten at any implication of over-softness, Waver realizes that as he speaks the words, he feels not an ounce of shame in their sentimentality. "And you're in no place to judge. Remember that I read your thesis and portions of your chapter draft for the fifth war. You were just as wrapped up in Archer as I was with Alexander."

"Yes, I was," Rin says. It is hard to tell if there is edge in the confirmation. Waver decides there isn't. "And it wasn't just because I was young and he was a hero. It was because I needed something beyond the Grail and he gave that." She stops, and Waver knows that if Rin was younger right now, she'd be blushing and vehemently denying that there was red in her cheeks at all. "We needed each other-whether we acknowledge it or not. I don't think you and I differ there either."

Waver considers the statement, then gestures for Rin to continue. "And what did we both need?"

"Direction. Purpose. A channel."

"Perhaps," Waver says, refusing to give Rin any sort of satisfaction in being right. He instead fixes his glass with a blandly put-out look, as if it was solely at fault for his predicament. "But there's too much to write, and I'm present in too much of it."

"You knew that when you agreed to do this book." Rin sighs, knowing the point of the exercise has been missed, forcing her to reveal too much and him too little. "Moreover, we've digressed. After you used all the command seals, what did he say to you?"

The question finally silences Waver. He knows that Rin knows better than to rush him, so he accepts the quiet, the feeling of condensation gathering atop his fingers, and watches as it pools into a shallow river between his skin and the glass. His voice is low when he replies, in a way that speaks more of control than calm. "He asked me to join him in battle. And we rode out to meet Archer."

Rin shudders at the idea of facing Gilgamesh at the side of anyone-even Alexander. "And there?"

"They met at the center of the bridge." Before, he had not met Rin's eyes by choice. Now it is by necessity, and he studies the forest in the distance that makes up the house's property line, hiding it from the road and the prying eyes of mages that might presume to spy on the old Archibald home. "They drank wine, spoke, and he returned. It-it was a battle of decisive blows. Rider called the Ionioi Hetaroi and Archer's Noble Phantasm, Ea, undid the Reality Marble itself. Then, with that destroyed, I remained where we had returned to the bridge, and Rider-" There's a silence then, a place that speaks not so much of a suitable verb not being available, but not existing. Waver swallows, thinking it will dislodge more speech, but a laugh barks out of him instead, sharp and painful as a cough, and leaving his eyes just as treacherously hot. "He charged, and... Damn it." He remembers a command, the final one, the one he's ignored for years after seeing the rest of this Grail War nonsense through because to speak of it was to deliver a eulogy. It's a double offense-ignoring the command of one king and being unworthy of a gift from another. "That little litany isn't enough for it. The tyrant would want Homer."

"Homer is moralizing about war," Rin says, respectfully diverting her eyes from the horizon Waver has fixated on. "Especially how trivial it is and how it can destroy the most important relationships in our lives. This is precise documentation. One that we agreed to write, knowing that we ourselves are a part of the text. The litany will have to do, unless you think yourself a poet now, or that this discussion might make a suitable chapter in a hypothetical memoir. I know my chapter won't."

Rin's steadiness is reliable as ever, precisely where Waver expects it to be, and he lets himself settle against it until he has equilibrated. It's one of the silent courtesies their relationship is built upon, too often traded for any precise recollection. "If you'd known me when I was fourteen, you wouldn't suggest poetry," he quips dryly, and that is signal enough that he can return to work, and will. He pushes the glass aside, then smudges the table dry with his coat sleeve. "You'll get your precision. But no whinging about how dry it is."

"I'll fix that in the editing phase anyway," Rin says, sliding the papers across the table. She stands to leave, collecting Waver's water glass before turning back towards the house and leaving him to his thoughts and his pen. Waver watches her go, then uncaps the pen, restarting his last sentence.

The first character is a stuttery scratch of blue-black. For a moment, he is tempted to take that as an omen and follow Rin inside, proclaim that it's been a month since he cleaned this pen anyway and-

Before he can give another second to the foolish thought, the nib is pressed and pulling against his tongue, tasting metal-sharp and unavoidably of ink, like a cold and bittersweet wound. The first few strokes are blotchy, and uneven, and too pale. He writes.

As for Rider-Alexander the Great-the charisma of his legend was preserved as a heroic spirit, as was his skill at working around given parameters. He attempted to recruit the other servants in the war into his army rather than fight against them. The offer was rebuffed by all, which he took gracefully and continued to act amicably to all other servants involved, even in battle, commanding their respect in the process.

Notes:

*This fic was originally posted on AO3 on 14 December 2012 and is mirrored here: /works/592990
*This fic was co-written with Soodonim, please see her AO3 profile here: /users/Soodonim/pseuds/Soodonim
*This fic is a part of the series If Not Alexander, then Diogenes, and is available on AO3 here: /series/2375
*With thanks to Puel for reading this over and saying the fic needed more Rin and Archer and Penitence Road for the beta.
*Rin gives less narrative of the Grail War to maintain ambiguity over which route has been used in this series.
*As far as the date of 10 December 1996 goes - it is very had to tell when /zero takes place outside of the mid 90s. I picked a date after October (to make sure Waver would be 19).